Essentials of Sociology. George Ritzer

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СКАЧАТЬ sites themselves rather than in the family, in schools, or through advertisements. For example, preteens and teens spend a large amount of time at shopping malls, either with their families or, as they mature, on their own and in the company of peers. Although young people may be going to a movie in a mall’s multiplex or just “hanging out” at the mall rather than shopping, the fact remains that those activities take place in a setting devoted to shopping and consumption (Cook 2004; Rose 2010). Children readily learn the nuts and bolts of how to consume. They also learn various norms and values of consumption, especially to value the processes of consumption and shopping and the goods and services acquired through those processes.

      There is a toy line produced by Moose Toys oriented mainly to selling figurines called Shopkins to children (see www.shopkinsworld.com). More important, these products also aim at promoting unbridled consumption—“Once you shop . . . you can’t stop!”—both in the present and implicitly throughout the life span of those who first play with the toys as children. The immediate goal is to entice children into collecting as many Shopkins and as much associated paraphernalia as possible. A broader goal is implicit in the fact that the figurines are characters associated with a wide array of items that can be purchased in stores. Among them are Kooky Cookie (a chocolate chip cookie), Polly Polish (a bottle of nail polish), and Lippy Lips (a tube of lipstick). Most broadly, the goal is to encourage a lifetime of “hyperconsumption” (Ritzer 2012a).

      Online consumption and shopping sites (such as Amazon and eBay) are also socializing agents. Navigation and buying strategies are learned at digital retailers, and those have an effect on consumption in the brick-and-mortar world. For instance, many younger people who have grown up with online shopping are adept comparison shoppers. They are likely to compare products online and to search out the best possible deals before making purchases. Some storefront retailers have gone out of business as a result of online competition, further reinforcing the use of online retailers. Other largely storefront retailers (e.g., Walmart) have developed new hybrids of online and storefront retailing. They offer consumers the ability to buy online and then pick up their items at local outlets (Amazon has recently entered this market). The hope is that visits to local stores will lead consumers to make unplanned purchases. These new forms of retailing offer new ways of socializing young people into our culture of consumption.

      Socialization into being a consumer also reinforces lessons about race, class, and gender (Otnes and Zayre 2012). In Inside Toyland (2006), Christine Williams shows that consumer choices—where to shop, what brands to buy, what products are appropriate for whom—contribute to the maintenance of social inequalities. Girls face pressure to consume beauty products that encourage them to live up to an idealized and usually unattainable level of female beauty (Wiklund et al. 2010). For example, the Barbie doll is often presented as an ideal form of the female body—one physically impossible to attain in real life. Such toys socialize children not only into a consumer culture but also into one that reproduces and reinforces harmful gender expectations.

      Adult Socialization

      A great deal of adult socialization takes place in later life as people enter the work world (Ellis, Bauer, and Erdogan 2015) and become independent of their families.

      Workplaces

      At one time, socialization into a workplace was a fairly simple and straightforward process. Many workers were hired for jobs in large corporations (e.g., General Motors, U.S. Steel) and remained there until they reached retirement age. Especially for those who held jobs in the lower reaches of the corporate hierarchy, socialization occurred for the most part in the early stages of a career. Today, however, relatively few workers can look forward to a career in a single position within a single company. Increasing numbers of workers are changing employers, jobs, and even careers with some frequency (Bernhardt et al. 2001; Legerski 2012). Each time workers change jobs, they need resocialization to unlearn old behaviors, norms, and values and to learn new ones. They can no longer rely (assuming it was ever possible) on what they learned as children, in school, or in their early years on the job.

      Ask Yourself

      In one or more of your jobs, have you ever been involved in an orientation or training period or program? What occurred during this time that you could now classify as part of a workplace socialization process? How successful was it, and, thinking back, do you believe it could have been done better?

      Consider the findings of one study of U.S. workers’ experiences in the job market. The researchers found that the generation of workers who entered the labor market in the late 1980s were 43 percent more likely to change jobs during their lifetimes than the generation that began in the early 1960s (Bernhardt et al. 2001). Today, workers will hold an average of 12 jobs during their lifetime and average just 4.2 years per job (Doyle 2018). Millennials, in particular, tend to “job hop,” or work less than two years in a job position (Chatzky 2018). Clearly, workers are changing jobs more frequently and filling more different jobs over a lifetime.

      Allison Pugh (2015) argues that this change in work has helped create a culture of insecurity—a “tumbleweed society”—that affects not just the economy and our jobs but also our personal relationships and self-identity. She discovered through her interviews with 80 mothers and fathers that this culture of insecurity profoundly shapes their expectations of commitment, loyalty, and obligation. Flexibility in the workplace has weakened employer commitment but not the work ethic of the labor force. Some workers value flexibility because it gives them more freedom and mobility. This is especially true for well-educated professionals, who are better positioned financially to relocate for a new job. But others, particularly unskilled males, feel angry that their hard work does not guarantee stable employment. Interestingly, this anger is directed not against their bosses but at themselves for being too dependent on their jobs. Pugh describes this as a “one-way honor system” that holds individual workers, not their employers, responsible for their job successes and failures.

      Total Institutions

      At some point in their lives, many adults find themselves in some type of total institution (Gambino 2013; Goffman 1961a). A total institution is a closed, all-encompassing place of residence and work set off from the rest of society that meets all the needs of those enclosed in it.

      A major example of a total institution is the prison. In 2018, 2.3 million Americans were housed in prisons and jails of various types (including, among others, military prisons and detention centers for immigrants; Wagner and Sawyer 2018). On initial entry into prison, inmates undergo formal resocialization in the form of being told the rules and procedures they must follow. However, of far greater importance is the informal socialization that occurs over time through their interactions with guards and especially with other inmates. In fact, other inmates often socialize relatively inexperienced criminals into becoming more expert criminals; prisons are often “schools for crime” (Lopez-Aguado 2016; Sykes [1958] 2007).

      Another total institution is the military. Members generally live in military housing. They often eat together, share living quarters, and have access to all necessary services on the military base. They must follow strict rules of dress, conduct, physical appearance, and organization of their time.

      Other Aspects of Adult Socialization

      Adult socialization and resocialization take place in many other ways and in many other settings. For example, medical schools, law schools, and graduate schools of various types socialize their students to be doctors, lawyers, nurses, and members of other professions (Becker and Geer 1958; Granfield 1992; Hafferty 2009). Students have to learn the norms that govern their appearance; conduct; and interactions with others in their professions, their СКАЧАТЬ